Cycling Inequalities in Copenhagen: Strategies and Policies

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Cycling inequalities in Copenhagen : Strategies and policies

Léo Couturier Lopez

Urban Studies

Master's (Two-Year) Thesis 30 Credits

Semester 4 / 2021

Supervisor: Elnaz Sarkheyli

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Abstract

The bike, once relegated to a neglected, dangerous, and less efficient means of transport compared to cars, has seen its role and is images being reinforced all around the world. However, despite its intrinsic characteristic of being easily accessible, the cycling practice is not value-free. It embodies and reproduces inequalities that cross our societies. The transportation justice research framework investigates conditions to access this sustainable means of transportation insofar of our needs. As such, my research questions the capacity of the municipality of Copenhagen to address mobility justice challenges in cycling practices.

First, I investigated this question by analyzing two main types of documents: A national travel survey, disaggregated at the scale of the greater Copenhagen, and strategic documents made by the municipality to evaluate their progress in developing the cycling practice. Then, I ran a set of expert semi-structured interviews to explore what I observed in the documents.

The results showed that behind the outstanding numbers, the cycling strategies and visions focus essentially on the commuters and exclude other groups. It limits the cycling practices to the productivity sphere, ensuring an efficient mode of transport to work or education. Despite a gender gap non-existent in biking, the study showed strong differences in cycling patterns. More surprisingly the highest income groups are the ones that cycle the most, but they also drive their car the most as they live predominantly in the suburbs. The cycling practice is also plateauing, may be decreasing.

I conclude with a call for diversifying the types of cycle mobility that would take better take into consideration the different needs. In order to maintain a high level of cycling in the Capital, the strategies and policies of cycling should be overseen at the metropolitan scale with a clear structure or institution defining goals and visions.

Key words: Cycling practices; Mobility Justice, Policies, and strategies.

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Acknowledgment

I would first like to thank my thesis advisor, Senior Lecturer Elnaz Sarkheyli at Malmö University. She managed to keep me on the right tracks by providing me rightful advises and encouragement. She consistently allowed this paper to be my own work but steered me in the right the direction whenever he thought I needed it.

I would also like to thank the experts who were involved in the interviews of this research project:

Thomas Sick Nieslen, Marianna Weinreich, Pernille Bussone. Their insights and sometimes passion about the field of mobility made these interviews more than just a method of data collection.

I would also like to acknowledge Natalie Gulsrud from Copenhagen University for her very valuable comments on this thesis and hope our collaboration will go further.

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my flat mates for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout the difficult months of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction ... 8

1.1 Background ... 8

1.2 Research question ... 11

1.3 Aim of the study ... 11

1.4 Previous research ... 12

1.5 Layout ... 14

2 Theory ... 15

2.1 Mobility Justice ... 15

2.1.1 The modern mobility ... 15

2.1.2 Mobility Justice ... 15

2.1.3 The “Right to the City” for a just city? ... 17

3 The object of study ... 18

4 Methodology ... 19

4.1 Secondary data sources ... 20

4.1.1 City of Copenhagen: Green Mobility ... 20

4.1.2 City of Copenhagen’s budget: a city for everyone (En By for Alle) ... 20

4.1.3 City of Copenhagen: Cycle Superhighways ... 20

4.1.4 City of Copenhagen & Decisio: Effects of lower car use ... 21

4.1.5 Denmark Statistic ... 21

4.1.6 Gender studies by Ramboll ... 22

4.1.7 Danish National Travel Survey ... 22

4.1.8 Bicycle account 2018 (published in 2019) Copenhagen Municipality ... 25

5 Analysis ... 26

5.1 The recontextualization of the cycling practice ... 26

5.2 Spatial inequalities between the Greater Copenhagen and Copenhagen Municipality ... 28

5.2.1 Statistics ... 28

5.2.2 Cycling policies and strategies ... 31

5.2.3 Interviews ... 33

5.3 Gender ... 33

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5.4 Income ... 36

5.5 Age ... 39

5.6 Occupation ... 42

5.7 Analysis summary ... 45

6 Discussion ... 47

6.1 A half-hearted tone theory ... 47

6.2 Disparate methods but consistent results ... 48

7 Conclusion ... 48

7.1 Recommendations ... 49

8 Bibliography ... 51

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Table of figures

Figure 1: Share of total carbon reductions. Source: Climate Plan Copenhagen 2025, page 21 ... 9

Figure 2: Allocation of reductions from mobility initiatives. source: Climate Plan Copenhagen 2025, page 21 ... 9

Figure 3: History of the Danish National Travel Survey ... 22

Figure 4: Denmark NUTS (source Eurostat) ... 23

Figure 5: National Travel Survey. Denmark scale (DTU,2020) ... 24

Figure 6: National Travel Survey. Copenhagen scale (DTU,2021) ... 24

Figure 7: Cykelredegørelse 2020, translated from the internet. ... 25

Figure 8: Technical and Environmental Administration or TMF (Teknik-og Miljøforvaltningen) of Copenhagen Municipality ... 25

Figure 9: Share of mileage by mode. Chart made from table 3 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 6). Reference: author ... 27

Figure 10: Share of mileage by purpose. Chart made from figure 21 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 17). Reference: author ... 27

Figure 11: Commuter modal split per trip (bikes). Comparison between Copenhagen Municipality and the Greater Copenhagen. Chart made from table 25 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 21) and the “Bicycle account 2018”(Copenhagen Municipality, 2019, p. 6); Reference: author ... 28

Figure 12: Greater Copenhagen. Modal split by mileage (all modes). Chart made from the table 8 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 8). Reference: author ... 29

Figure 13: Modal split comparison between Greater Copenhagen and Copenhagen Municipality (all trips). Chart made from the table 18 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 14) and the “Bicycle account 2018” (Copenhagen Municipality, 2019, p. 6). Reference: author ... 30

Figure 14:Modal split comparison between Greater Copenhagen and Copenhagen Municipality (Commuting). Chart made from the table 18 of TU (DTU, 2019, p. 14) and the “Bicycle account 2018” (Copenhagen Municipality, 2019, p. 6). Reference: author ... 30

Figure 15: map of the existing and future cycling highways. Source: Cycle superhighways bicycle account (REF)... 31

Figure 16:Sketch from the first Finger Plan created by the Regional Planning Office in 1947 (Danish Ministry of Environment “Finger plan”) ... 31

Figure 17: Potential living area for targeted car commuters. Map made on QGIS with the data from opendata.dk and the figure 15. Reference: author ... 32

Figure 18:Gender modal split by mileage and travel time. Chart made from the table 28a of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 22). Reference: author ... 34

Figure 19: Gender. Number total of causalities on the bike in the Greater Copenhagen. Chart made from Denmark Statistic Data. Reference: author ... 35

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7 Figure 20: Gender. Numbers of seriously injured in a bike in the Greater Copenhagen. Chart made from Denmark Statistic Data. Reference: author ... 35 Figure 21: Gender. Numbers of slightly injured in a bike in the Greater Copenhagen. Chart made from Denmark Statistic Data. Reference: author ... 35 Figure 22: Bicycle. mileage per day per income groups. Chart made from the table 37 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 28). Reference: author ... 37 Figure 23: All modes of transport. Mileage per day per income group. Chart made from the table 37 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 28). Reference: author ... 37 Figure 24: Bicycle. Modal split per mileage per income group. All modes of transport. Chart made from the table 37a of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 28). Reference: author ... 38 Figure 25: Bicycle. Mileage per day per age group. Chart made from the table 31 of TU (DTU, 2021, p.

24). Reference: author ... 39 Figure 26: Bicycle. Modal split per mileage, per age group. Chart made from the table 31a of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 24). Reference: author ... 40 Figure 27: Occupation groups, bicycle mileage per day. Chart made from the table 34 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 26). Reference: author ... 43 Figure 28: Occupation groups, bicycle modal share (Personal mileage). Chart made from the table 34a (DTU, 2021, p. 26). Reference: author ... 43

Table 1: Commuters by car to work or study in Copenhagen, divided by the distance to work or education. Table made from "Bicycle strategy 2011-2025" (Copenhagen Municipality, 2012, p. 5).

Reference: author ... 32 Table 2: Key figures in Greater Copenhagen. Chart made from the table 2 of TU (DTU, 2021, p. 5).

Reference: author ... 33 Table 3: Analysis summary table ... 45

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1 Introduction

1.1 Background

What is it to be mobile? It is moving in space and time. It is the capacity to face the present, heading to a future as the opposition of a remote past. Mobility has always incarnated the sense of modernity, from the non-sedentary population to the mobility of the Capital in the Marxist theory. Mobility is always the symbol of life and growth. Whatever the means, a device that gives access to better mobility than before will be prioritized whatever the cost. The industrialization of the late 1900s, slowed down by the two world wars, brought cars into everyday life during the post-world wars economic growth. The democratization of this individual mode of transport was the quintessence of mobility. As consequence, we shaped the cities and the landscapes around the usage of this machine. Which led unavoidably to its limits, especially in a world with such rapid growth. Congestion, air, and noise pollution were the visible sign of these limits. They arrived hand in hand with the evidence-based recognition of global warming that will drive this century's challenges.

The bike, once relegated to a neglected, dangerous, and less efficient means of transport compared to cars, has seen its role and is images being reinforced all around the world. Biking is an attempt to protect mobility in a specific environment (urban). The cars jeopardized this capacity of being mobile (congestion, space-consuming, accident) and its ecological costs arrive at the same as the awareness of its impact on the health. Therefore, the bike is claiming again to be the sovereign of the streets. Although the reasons behind biking are diverse, the benefit of the practice starts to be clearer. Cycling addresses multiple United Nations’

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) number 3, 10, and 11 that respectively correspond to “Good Health and Well-being”, “Reduced Inequalities” and “Sustainable Cities and Communities”.

The Capital of Denmark plays an unusual role in this context. Its early history with cycling was strongly associated with low-cost bicycles indispensable for lower- and middle-class commuters. The early 20’s century saw the streets of Copenhagen flooded by bikes with an incredible 31% of trips made by bike at the time, a score much better than many modern cities these days. Despite a post-world war turn marked by top- down modern urban planning taking the cycling practice out of the equation, the famous Finger Plan was not even proposing a cycle track network (HENDERSON &GULSRUD,2019). The city did not make a clear car-oriented mobility transition in the ’70s as many other cities did. Even though there was a clear drop in the cycling rate at the time with 17% of modal share (OLDENZIEL ET AL.,2016), the investments have not been made at the time to mark a clear transition to the car city.

The context of the economic crisis of the ’70s opened the room for street reappropriation. The ’70s have seen across the world the rise of new left/progressist movements contesting capitalism and its symbols like cars. The bike was elevated as a weapon to advocate a world more just. Copenhagen was a place of fights and the bike, with its strong history there, took a central role in the contestation (Christiania, cycling federation demonstrations, car-free Sundays,). Copenhagen faced a huge economic crisis in the ’90s with high unemployment and a drop in the city inhabitants. The city compromised with the state and embrace a neoliberal urban renewal scheme, like the redevelopment of the 42km of industrialized waterfront, to finance expensive loans it had to take out. From there, the competition, even with the suburbs, to bring back inhabitants with the highest incomes started. We will observe later that this ideology has an impact even today in the cycling practices, policies, and strategies.

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Figure 1: Share of total carbon reductions. Source: Climate Plan Copenhagen 2025, page 21

Figure 2: Allocation of reductions from mobility initiatives. source: Climate Plan Copenhagen 2025, page 21

The 2000s initiated a neoliberal turn with the city embracing its international dimension, extending at a worldwide scale. the competition to bring the “creative class” and mobilize the “3T’s of economic growth”:

Technology, Talent and Tolerance (FLORIDA, 2005). Then the bike endorsed the anachronic role of influencer that promotes and brands Copenhagen, notably through its program of being a carbon-neutral city by 2025. Its ambitions carry new policies and strategies to reduce gas emissions from transport.

Legitimately, the plan includes the development of cycling practice through a modal shift that will reduce CO2 emissions from cars.

The Climate Plan 2025 of Copenhagen Municipality¹ estimated at 11% the share of Green mobility in the total of the carbon reductions capacity. Among this 11%, 30% is attributed to the City of cyclist initiative.

Its weight in the total capacity of gas emissions reductions is “only” 3.3% (30% of the 11%). It is important to recontextualize the role of cycling and not being caught in the fantasy of cycling will solve the problem of global warming. Therefore, it is normal to ask ourselves, what makes cycling practice important if it is not only for its ecological impact?

It is now widely spread among the research community and the population that physical activities while commuting, like biking, are positively associated with health strong health benefits (VON HUTH SMITH ET AL.,2007). Commuting by bike might even be more important than we thought as doubts even rose that leisure-time physical activities alone might not be a sufficient public health approach to fight obesity for instance (BAUMAN ET AL., 2008). In the context of Copenhagen, the Cycle Superhighways program

1 https://urbandevelopmentcph.kk.dk/artikel/cph-2025-climate-plan

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10 evaluated the benefits from health effects as a result of physical exercise during cycling. 85% of the money saved by using the new cycling lanes that the program proposed same from the economy made from the health system. Advocates of cycling-as-commuting present it also as money-saving for individuals. Even though the previous figures show the slight impact the cycling practice has on CO2 emissions, reducing the number of cars and changing the practices might have side effects underestimated in the calculation like the artificialization of the grounds.

Biking today could be pitched by opponents as an attempt to reduce mobility. Putting aside the economic lobbies that advocate for an evolution of the technology such as electric cars, some car users see the new restrictions to cars usage as a genuine threat, because it would indeed reduce their mobility, grinding them to a halt, and therefore taking them their aptitude/capacity to project themselves in time and space away.

Despite these outcomes that advocate strongly in favor of initiating the modal shift, one cannot exclude that Environmentalism could be part of a “postmaterialist” mindset characterized by human self-realization and quality of life. In this theory, these attributes are to be found in the world’s economically advanced societies and therefore in the most advantaged social groups (GROSS, 2018). Embracing biking is therefore associated with symbols of belonging to specific parts of the population that can “afford” to cycle. Moving rapidly and at a longer distance is still the duty of the poorest, whereas moving rapidly at a shorter distance though might be the prerogative of the richest.

Mobility incarnates the symbol of modernity. But even the notion of modernity itself is switching. Then, it is not uncanny to witness blurriness between symbols that should represent it. Indeed, there are different representations, though maybe not incompatible. For Recchi & Flipo:

“the automobile epitomizes the key material object and the foundational ideology of advanced capitalism: speed, individual control of time and space, personal freedom, and the idea that identity expresses itself through consumption choices” (RECCHI &FLIPO,2020, P.131).

The contemporary discourse around green mobility, like in Copenhagen (COPENHAGEN

MUNICIPALITY,2013), defines the bike as an iconic object this vehicle takes center stage in the “virtuous materiality of environmentalism”, participating in the legitimation of specific social classes (HORTON, 2006). This representation of the car suggests that the social groups that benefit the most from advanced capitalism would “naturally” choose this mode of transports. However, the democratization of cars and the re-development of cities center made this mode of transportation obsolete for those who can afford to live in urban centers.

Consequently, the bicycle is today a “potent symbol of identity and status (…). Cycling to work is positively associated with the share of creative-class jobs and negatively associated with working-class jobs” says Richard Florida, the head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, to the Guardian in an article that questions the role of the bikes in the gentrification of cities (GEOGHEGAN,2016). For instance, whereas African-Americans make up 20% of the population of Boston, they make up only 1% of the city’s cyclists. In Amsterdam, one of the most famous bicycle-friendly cities, residents of Moroccan and Turkish descent are less likely to cycle than their Dutch- descent counterparts. “Minorities are just as likely to cycle but often live-in areas that lack bike infrastructure”, says Samuel Stein, an urban geographer at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, to the Guardian (GEOGHEGAN,2016). Social, gender, and ethnic inclusivity is, therefore, a key topic to understand determinants of and obstacles to cycling.

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11 What if the cycling culture, its policies and representations, is leaving aside, a big part of the population, preventing to initiate a sharped modal shift that plays an essential role in tackling all the contemporary challenges in matter of ecology, health, and economy. Despite a universal accessible image, the bike might reproduce the inequalities of our societies. Then it is legitimate to consider the success of the biking story in the light of inequalities that lie behind this practice. Thus, the questions arise as, considering that the bikes imply to be an alternative to the cars, are there any inequalities in the access to cycling? Who, exactly, is not biking? Is there a specific segment of the population that does not adopt this means of transportation?

Are social classes or groups a factor of inclusion/exclusion in cycling practices?

Copenhagen has been and is still today a place of mobility space fights. The politics of mobility have been driven by concepts such as inclusivity and “right to the city” (HARVEY, 2003) from the Left progressive. However, the process of gentrification, not independent from the Neo-liberal politics of urban growth, slowly pushed away in the suburbs some population that cannot afford to live in the vibrant and elitist Copenhagen. They are forced to embrace car-dependent configurations. The Neoliberal city abandons such concepts and lets the market drive politics of housing and mobility. Cycling practices take place in this context. Looking at cycling behavior without a political perspective is missing crucial understandings and undermines the long-term goals of sustainable mobilities.

1.2 Research question

Copenhagen is a city where the cycling practice is shown as an example of a sustainable mode of transport accessible to everyone. However, despite its intrinsic characteristic of being easily accessible, the cycling practice is not value-free. It embodies and reproduces inequalities that cross our societies.

Consequently, the study aims to answer the following question:

- How Copenhagen’s cycling policies and strategies addressed transportation justice issues?

To deepen the angle of research, the study will try to answer sub-questions such as what are the segments of the population that cycle less or not at all? How can they be characterized (ethnic, social, economic, geographical)? Are the income groups or social classes equally represented among the cyclist’s commuters in Copenhagen today? What are the factors underlying these inequalities?

1.3 Aim of the study

Why these questions are relevant? Despite the accessible nature of the bike, its cost, and its image in post-modern society, they are not just a simple mode of transportation. Like universal and free access products and services, at least allegedly, such as water, education, and health, for instance, it will not ignore the underlying inequalities that cross our societies. This study is also important because it uses the bike to both enhance these inequalities and explore areas to improve the access to something that should be the most simple and equal mode of transport. Overall, my project pursues a better understanding of cyclists:

who they are, and who is missing.

Firstly, it will provide new perspectives that will contribute to the theoretical debate explored later in the literature review. Indeed, the competition among cities to attract innovative and wealthy individuals might drive forces of gentrification that could extend the cycling gap between classes. At the same time, bicycle aims to become a mainstream mode of transport that would tackle health, ecological and economic challenges in cities but lack to tackle inequalities in the cycling culture. The research corpus would benefit

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12 from deepening the crossing of social, economic, and spatial inequalities with the bicycle practice. It would also help investigate the relevancy of the income group categories in the understanding of bike practices.

Secondly, in practice, the research’s outcomes will be multiples. The social inequalities in cycling will be explored and enriched with a more critical approach to “green” mobility policies. Specific areas or populations are consisting of what I call “reservoirs of cyclists” that could be triggered to release their flow and, consequently, stimulating the modal shift from cars to bikes. By identifying these groups and their location, policies can be adapted to their needs. The same approach cannot fulfill the need of these different interests at the risk of favoring the richest through green mobility policies.

Besides, the research could pave the way to the creation of an indicator with the identification or, maybe, the design of methods of measuring the inequalities and assessing the inclusivity of the bicycle policies. The effectiveness of the methods and the tools for evaluating cycling policies are expected to positively impact the process of public policymaking aiming at fostering cycling practices. It could shed light on the success stories of cities achieving levels of inclusion in cycling, as well as highlight emerging, and innovative work being undertaken in lesser-known global cycling hotspots through the indicator. It also explores the potential for comparing cities in their actual successes in transitioning all segments of the population towards cycling as a mobility mode share.

In conclusion, my subject is situated between the technical debates around the means to promote cycling and the research to determine who is biking. My research will be of interest to both professionals and researchers. My research-based approach will expand upon existing knowledge around the reasons that prevent people from biking but will also propose tools that will capture a picture of the situation in Copenhagen, and potentially in other contexts. In this way, professionals may find new possibilities to both evaluate and compare a specific dimension but also find useful examples in cities that wouldn’t immediately be regarded as the most bicycle-friendly.

1.4 Previous research

Inequalities take on several forms when it comes to cycling. Numerous studies investigated gender approaches as a factor of cycling inequalities. The results of these studies demonstrate that cycling practices are strongly embodied in gender inequalities (CARROLL,2020;LUBITOW ET AL.,2019;PRATI,2018;

PRATI ET AL.,2019;SHAW ET AL.,2020), Even though an almost perfect gender balance is observed in cycling practices in Copenhagen by gender (HAUSTEIN,KOGLIN, ET AL.,2020), the Municipality itself points out that, among the 48% of Copenhageners with a background in countries without a “strong cycling culture” that never cycle, most of them are women (COPENHAGEN MUNICIPALITY,2019, P.27).

A recent green paper from Rambøll explored the different cycling trip patterns between men and women and advocate for better inclusion of women in the decision-making process (RAMBØLL,2021). The report points out the hidden forces that shape the gender inequalities in mobility in Denmark. Beyond the

“consensus” of gender balance in the transport and mobility sector in Denmark, the report brings elements that demonstrate uneven transport patterns between men and women and that these inequalities are not addressed in transport planning. The place of the car in the household and the symbol it incarnates play a crucial role to understand its uses and by extension, the barrier for the modal shift it embodies. The lack of women in decision-makers corps, politicians, researchers, and other experts and economists advising the first ones, create a strong limitation to tackling cycling inequalities through strategy and policies. These

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13 events take shape in theoretical frameworks such as David Harvey’s “Right to the City” that defend the right to shape the city we live in (developed later in the “Theory Chapter”).

Haustein et al. reaffirmed in earlier research the gender balance in the Danish context but confirmed that inequalities were found within social groups where individuals with residence in neighborhoods with a higher share of people of non-Western origin are less likely to cycle (HAUSTEIN,KROESEN, ET AL.,2020).

However, the studies do not demonstrate whether the cultural factor is preeminent to explain the lack of cycling practice or if other socio-economic and spatial characteristics of these groups might explain the phenomenon. The Copenhagen municipality’s Bicycle Account reports that citizens with a background in countries without a “strong cycling culture never bike” (COPENHAGEN MUNICIPALITY,2019, P. 27)).

They also mention a report from 2012 on immigrants cycling practice is mentioned but I could not find it online. 56% of those citizens that never cycle are women. Behind the good cycling numbers stated by ht Municipality of Copenhagen, there might be ethnics, economics and social groups that we are left aside of the bicycles practice because of a lack of consideration of their own barriers. The same way that showing that there is less corporal and deadly accident when biking in Copenhagen than before might not convinced specific groups of people to bike because that is not their main consideration.

The sense of biking safety illustrates the limits of a basic approach in the cultural explanation of cycling inequalities. Some researchers consider safeness globally, not only through physical accidents. They recommend including more crime statistics (aggression and thefts) and improving their understandings of minorities’ own fears (BROWN,2016) and considerations (LUSK ET AL.,2017). This approach suggests the lack of biking among specific groups should not be reduced to simple fears stemming from low biking skills or habits, but also, and maybe mainly, due to an overall concern about the safety of their own property (the bike). Indeed, studies built bridges between incomes, ethnicity and bike accidents and found out a direct correlation between high poverty rates in areas with more biking trips and more cyclist crashes (YU,2014).

This result might be in contradiction with my hypothesis that higher income groups cycle more than the others. However, owning and using a car in the United States is still a sign of self-accomplishment, wherein in Western European countries, less and less the highest social groups attribute to biking post-materialist value and reinforce the feeling of belonging to the dominant class.

As the cultural factor becomes less and less relevant to explore cycling inequalities, researchers cross different cultural and ethnic characteristics with spatial attributes to determine inequalities. In Malmö, in Sweden, a research on “bike and ride” opportunities, i.e., possibilities to involve the use of a bicycle in conjunction with another type of transportation such as public transit, found out that the cultural factor or the racial/ethnic discrimination were not relevant to understand inequalities in cycling (HAMIDI ET AL., 2019). The opportunities to cycling are more due to social groups' location rather than their background, suggesting it is more a spatial problem (BÖCKER ET AL., 2020). These conclusions are found in other research that investigates income classes and spatial segregation in bike-sharing systems (BÖCKER &

ANDERSON, 2020). These spatial inequalities in cycling are shown through the imbalance in job accessibility, where most improvements in the access to bikes, as a mode for transit trips, are observed in middle to high-income areas whereas the poorest areas with the lowest accessibility, improved the least (PRITCHARD ET AL., 2019). The socio-economic status becomes a determinant factor to investigate inequalities in active travel and its consequences on the health benefit (OLSEN ET AL.,2017;TAYLOR ET AL.,2006). Indeed, economically disadvantaged and racial/ethnic minority populations have more barriers to become physically active and acquiring healthy weight and dietary standards (TAYLOR ET AL.,2006).

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14 This part supports my hypothesis that the highest social classes would embrace new green mobilities faster than other classes (define by income and/or job categories).

Spatial inequalities raise several questions and question the responsibility of the urban structure in the production of these inequalities (ROSAS-SATIZÁBAL ET AL.,2020). The scission between central areas and more peripheral ones is growing and is problematic regarding the cycling promotion as a contribution to public health, and sustainable mobility (NIELSEN ET AL., 2016). Lower-income areas have less accessibility to cycling facilities and commuting by bicycle higher in the highest income area than in the lowest (FULLER &WINTERS,2017). This could be explained by the disparities in cycling infrastructure investments. Indeed, a study in Portland and Chicago showed that marginalized communities are unlikely to attract as much cycling infrastructure investment without the presence of privileged populations (FLANAGAN ET AL.,2016).

1.5 Layout

My study is shaped around a diversified research framework that includes, firstly, a literature review that introduces the theoretical framework of Mobility Justice in critical geography within which my research question takes place. These two entries will constitute the core of the second part of the literature review where I will present a state of the art of Copenhagen cyclists' studies corpus.

Secondly, the research methods will involve a state of the art of current socio-economic and spatial facts, figures, and statistics of the cyclists in Copenhagen. This part analyses official documents provided by the municipality like “Bicycle Accounts” (from 1996 to the date) and any other strategic documents or political programs that inspire municipalities’ policies. I will also use the data and publications from the Center for Transport Analytic DTU² (Dansk Tenkske Universitet) and any other sources, like ones provided by the Cycling Embassy of Denmark³ or ones on which rely the Municipality’s planning and strategic documents

A particular point should be made as I requested sets of data through a partnership with the Center for Transport Analytics (CTA) as mentioned on its website⁴. I did not get any direct favorable answer but in the following days, they answered me that the data set for the Greater Copenhagen was from now available online.

Based on this first secondary data analysis, I ran a set of interviews with the Transports DTU that produce the Danish National Travel Survey 2019 (DTU,2021) and experts from Rambøll, Copenhagen University, the Danish Road Directorate, and the association Cycling Without Age, all involved in the cycling sector in Copenhagen. As I will describe in the methods chapter and the appendixes, the Municipality has been unreachable by any means, providing me only secondary data available online.

Finally, I will use the primary and secondary data collected to present cycling inequalities in Copenhagen and how their manifestation discusses the Mobility Justice theoretical framework. I will make recommendations to improve the evaluation of these inequalities and the strategies and policies addressing them

2 https://www.cta.man.dtu.dk/english

3 https://cyclingsolutions.info/cycling-embassy/

4 https://www.cta.man.dtu.dk/english/national-travel-survey/access_to_tu-data

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2 Theory

2.1 Mobility Justice

2.1.1 The modern mobility

In the pure radical geography form authors like Harvey, Massey, Smith, see the space as social and relational before being geographical and material. Its materiality is only the physical representation of the social phenomenon that occurs. Therefore, I see first the cycling space as a resultant of power relations within the social structures and their components. Space contributes to reproducing inequalities of the power structures of societies. Therefore, why the space, its physical/material representation but also its legal existence or its cultural manifestation (in the debate, the social networks, the branding,) would not let societies' inequalities be reproduced?

Mobility devices allow individuals to feel that they have control of space and time, like for instance, mobile phones allowing us to be in many different places at the same time. It is supposed to represent the perpetual movement and the end of the sedentary lifestyle. The car before, and today the bike also gives the feeling that you control the time and space since you re-conquer the public space like the paramount of the streets who finally got back to his kingdom. Also, the bike gives you the feeling you can go anywhere in the city and faster, without or very few limits: Time and space control.

Movement is an ideology and a utopia of the twenty-first century. It incarnates the freedom of multiple movements which, more than knowledge, characterize the neo-liberal dream (GRIECO &URRY,2011)

I see two ways, probably not exclusive one to the other, to understand the interest in the resurgence of the cycling culture nowadays. The emergence of capitalism goes hand to hand with the mobility of the workers that were pulled away from the countryside to feed the need of labor forces implied by industrialization. The roots of mobility are therefore old and deep, and their ramifications are still at the core of social life today. Max Weber, who studied the immigration of the poles in Germany during the 19 century and its implication in the matter of class struggle, places the mobility of the population as a force of social and cultural disorganization (RECCHI &FLIPO,2020).

The opposition of the sedentary rural areas and the nomadic urban spaces put mobility at the center of the urban phenomenon. Therefore, William I. Thomas presents the “mobile man” as the individual that crafts and detains universal knowledge, where the sedentary possesses “only” the local knowledge (RECCHI

&FLIPO,2020). This comparison inspires my assumptions that the high social classes take out from the bike practices the image of being mobile, feeling/need that was once fulfilled by the car.

Tim Cresswell considers three aspects of mobility: physical movement, the representations of movement that give it shared meaning; and, finally, the experienced and embodied practice of movement. There is a politic of representation of mobility that defines its narratives, its representations. Mobility is liberty and progress. No one wants to be immobile. (CRESSWELL,2010)

2.1.2 Mobility Justice

Regarding transportation justice, Mimi Sheller’s Mobility Justice concept offers theoretical supports that suit my research question. Grounded in centuries of imperialism and capitalism, transportation inequalities

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16 deepen with contemporary ecological challenges. Mobility Justice is more than the ongoing efforts to reduce car dependence, Mobility justice encompasses the notion of sustainability like unequal access to a sustainable mode of transport among the citizens (SHELLER,2018A). It shows how uneven mobility distorts human experiences of the world. It is an overarching concept that helps to disclose patterns of unequal mobility and immobility. It explores the responsibility of power inequalities in shaping these patterns (SHELLER,2018B). The mobility research was concerned initially with the question of transitioning low carbon models. It became clear that this would not be achieved without new understandings of social and cultural processes that interfered with the expected adoption of green solutions. Linking together the problem of sustainable transportation goals with social justice issues and politics of mobility is to explore the limits of contemporary green transition (SHELLER,2020).

Mobility Justice theory stems from the New Mobility Paradigm that examines the constitutive role of movement within social practices and the different modes of mobilities and their complex combinations (SHELLER &URRY,2016). The structure of the New Mobility Paradigm draws from Kuhn’s philosophical works in the 1970s around the conditions that precede the emergence of a new paradigm in social sciences.

It explores the perspective of the circulation of images and representation (like cycling in Copenhagen). In combination with the "world-class" approach (HOFFMANN &LUGO,2014) that draw the model of an ideal class court by international competing cities, the theory assemblage offers an ideal lens to look at my subject of study

My research strives to investigate cycling inequalities in Copenhagen. The mobility justice framework stimulates such an approach. Its ontologies encompass the understandings of unequal mobilities widely spread among groups, places, and time. It intersects transportation infrastructure, social equality, and civil rights (HOFFMANN &LUGO, 2014), from the rights to women to move freely in public space, without being subject to harassment, to the study of the displacement of population that the process of gentrification implies, through the uneven cycling practices.

John Urry and Grieco identify five independent mobilities, in which I focus on the “corporeal travel” to work, leisure, education. The authors emphasize the links between mobility and transport disadvantage. The different levels of access to transports can increase social exclusion (differentials in education, socio- economic circumstances, employment opportunities, shopping, and recreation) but also can affect sustainable development. Three of the seven categories of exclusion are of any interest to my research (CHURCH ET AL.,2000 IN GRIECO & URRY, 2011): geographical exclusion in rural and urban fringe areas; economic exclusion; fear-based exclusion – particularly by women, children, and the elderly.

Mobility Justice theory sparks off debates taking place in wider unequal mobility regimes. The injustices of uneven mobilities should be regarded through a new understanding of how we move physically around the city but also through gendered, racialized colonial histories and neocolonial presents.

How do we define “uneven mobilities”? How does it will be helpful to discuss my research results?

Mimi Sheller defines it first as a terrain that does not share the same pathways, access, or connectivity with all the individuals and groups. It can be a built environment integrated within an urban space, opening ways that connect some places while disconnecting others. Uneven mobilities refer also to segregated transportation systems with class-based exclusions that allocate, sometimes by force, the most vulnerable to outskirt areas with non-sustainable devices as the primary mode of transport, with longer distances for everyday commuting or leisure. Uneven mobilities encompass many objects of research like unequal access to environmental mobility solutions between suburban middle- and low-income classes, the spatial

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17 restrictions of people with disabilities, the limited mobility of racialized minorities in neocolonial societies, or constrained mobility of women in man-centered societies (SHELLER, 2018B; VERLINGHIERI &

SCHWANEN,2020)

Mobility research critically addresses contemporary political ramifications of sustainable mobility issues. Who is able to exercise rights to mobility and who is not? Who is capable of movement and who is stuck to stasis?

These questions force the scholar to explore the political terrain of the theoretical framework on which uneven spatial mobilities rest upon. They open up the analysis of the different forms of governance of mobility. They contribute to a multi-scalar approach of mobility (in)justice, from micro-level, with individual experience of mobility, to meso-level with urban transportation justice issues and the “right to the city”, to macro-level transnational. This multi-layered perspective invites us to take action and to identify struggles such as embodied experiences of gender, age, disability, sexuality, and the right to the city and the public sphere. Furthermore, these struggles crosscut within groups and individuals, leaving the cities inhabitants divided.

2.1.3 The “Right to the City” for a just city?

I take upon myself Thrasymachus’ concept of justice as phrased by David Harvey (HARVEY,2003, P. 940): “Justice is simply whatever the ruling class wants it to be.”

Therefore, the notion of justice must be deepened. To do so, I flip around the notion and have a look at what is unjust. It is the incapacity to access basic needs and activities, through transportation systems, due to your condition as a person with disabilities, or an elderly person, or being pregnant. It is a city shaped and designed in a way that makes some spatialities more dependent on cars than the other to the point that benefits from using sustainable modes of transport (air pollution reduction, time travel, cycling health benefit,) go principally to the most privileged.

The concept of “Right to the city” offers relevant understandings and perspectives on what is just and unjust regarding the experience of the city. Harvey defines such a right as not only access to the actual reality of the city but as a right to modify this reality (HARVEY,2003). Verlinghieri and Schwanen see it as the right of the city’s inhabitants to “produce, appropriate, rework, and use urban space and life”(VERLINGHIERI &SCHWANEN,2020, P.3), declining the concept in its materiality dimension.

Mobility researchers often mistake the two dimensions as they forget that the city has always been a place of confusion, inequality, and violence. Allowing access to an unequal city is not being equal: “Between equal rights, force decides”. There is “nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals”. Through theoretical equality and under constant and equally shared growth, the poorer become poorer and the rich richer. The same perspective can be applied to transportation solutions.

However, the place for utopian ideas is central to drive urban transformation. They are indispensable for motivation and action. Harvey advocates for new rights that also encompass the freedom of movement often confused the notion of mobility encapsulated in the neoliberal dream (see the mobility theory above) that pays no heed to the necessary diversification of types of movement. It is an active right to access a city shaped in accord with disadvantaged populations’ needs.

Exploring the justice of mobility is to critically assess the provision of better cycling structure and their access by looking at it through the lenses of societies’ injustices like gender, generational, racial. It is also

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18 unveiling the downsides of developing infrastructures, even in disadvantaged areas, as it might benefit gentrification and therefore, displacement of populations to even less connected areas. The expansion of cycling culture and infrastructures to car-dependent areas is at the core of the question of Mobility Justice.

(SHELLER,2020). The identification of spatial mismatch and physical accessibility can serve as a social indicator to evaluate government policies in cycling practices. (VERLINGHIERI &SCHWANEN,2020). My research question draws on these perspectives and explores what meso-level cycling policies can bring to the research corpus.

3 The object of study

To investigate these questions, the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, forms an ideal case since the city is recognized as one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. In 2016 in Denmark, 15% of all the trips were made by bicycle, which makes the country one of the most cycling nations in the world (NIELSEN ET AL.,2016). People cycle in all weather conditions and at all times of the day. Bicycles are used in all facets of life: pleasure, commuting, transport of goods, family travel, and more.

In this context, Copenhagen municipality is seen as an innovative and cutting-edge city as the city plans to achieve ambitious goals regarding the shares of bikes as the principal mode of transport (COPENHAGEN

MUNICIPALITY,2012). The city is often used by international media as an example of good cycling-related policy, practices, and urban planning, due to a strong culture of biking and political decisions (DESCAMPS, 2020;KIRSCHBAUM,2019;REID,2019). Indeed, Copenhagen, the city of cyclists, was not built in a day.

Despite its global reputation, the story of the city is punctuated by struggle, backslashes, and conflicts over the public space and has still a lot to improve (HENDERSON &GULSRUD,2019)

Besides, the city portrays itself as a cycling city (COPENHAGEN MUNICIPALITY,2019), and its efforts to evaluate cycling conditions extended to a program to promote cycling (HAUSTEIN,KOGLIN, ET AL., 2020).

Two figures exemplify the outstanding performance of Copenhagen with regards to cycling as the preeminent mode of transportation: 49% of commuters traveling to work or education are cyclists, - the target is to increase that number up to 50% by 2025 - and 32% of all trips to, from, and in Copenhagen in 2018 were made by cars - the target is to decrease that number to 25% by 2025 - (COPENHAGEN

MUNICIPALITY,2017A). Despite these figures that bear witness to the success of policymakers, still more than half of the population has not adopted bikes as their primary mode of commuting yet.

Moreover, the fairytale might have its downsides. Deregulation of housing in Copenhagen and the neoliberal approach of “green growth” policies such as branding Copenhagen as a cycling city might have pushed the working classes and middle class out of the city (HENDERSON &GULSRUD,2019).

Concepts such as “the right to the city” could resonate in the Copenhagen environment and help to shed light on the inequalities that undermine green mobility goals. Indeed, cycling policies and promotion will help to fight short-term goals about global warming but will probably fail long term if they do not incorporate the most vulnerable in the process, such as the “yellow vest” movement in France (KIMMELMAN,2018;WATTS,2018).

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4 Methodology

To answer my research question, I organized my study method into three parts. First, I undertook to analyze the Danish National Travel Survey (TU) which has for the first time published the data set that concern the Greater Copenhagen (see the description of TU later in this chapter). It is the main data source from which Copenhagen Municipality’s Bicycle accounts and strategic reports are made. I chose this method following a quick review of the current study methods that explore cyclist’s behavior and understanding trends.

Some research investigated, effects of gentrification on commuting behavior through the American Community Survey (ACS) (BEREITSCHAFT,2020), also used to evaluate bike-sharing systems in the US (MOONEY ET AL.,2019;WANG &ZHOU,2017). The same type of survey was used in Canada to examine income inequalities in Bike Score (FULLER & WINTERS, 2017) or England to exploring socio- demographic factors in relation to utility and leisure cycling (GOODMAN &ALDRED,2018). The survey offers the advantage of crossing items and topics to widen the approaches of a phenomenon (ROSAS- SATIZÁBAL ET AL.,2020)

In a Scandinavian context, different studies used the survey methods to explore aspects of cycling, from a comparison between Stockholm and Copenhagen cycling culture (HAUSTEIN,KOGLIN, ET AL.,2020) to the effects of the cultural origin of migrants on cycling practices (HAUSTEIN,KROESEN, ET AL.,2020).

The consultancy company Ramboll just released a survey taking place in 7 different European capital cities about gender inequalities in mobility (RAMBØLL,2021), following the same cross-sectional survey design that Prati et al. investigated also in Europe gender differences in attitudes towards cycling (PRATI ET AL., 2019)

The mobility justice theoretical framework provided me with themes to look for in the analysis of cycling inequalities: spatial inequalities, gender, income, occupation, and age. The racial perspective on cycling was excluded as the Danish Technical University (DTU) that oversees the survey informed me they do not merge the different sets of data that will combine cycling behavior with citizen’s backgrounds. Even if I wanted, I could not get the clearance to proceed with the merging as they do not consider the intersection relevant and accurate (See interview with Thomas Sick Nielsen).

Then, once I had a better picture of the cycling behaviors and patterns at the scale of the Greater Copenhagen, I could analyze available documents from the Municipality of Copenhagen that focus on the cycling strategy. I could draw a comparison between the two different scales: Greater Copenhagen and Copenhagen Municipality. However, the line is fine between the two as there is no meso-level planning strategy in the region of Copenhagen. As the results showed, the municipality of Copenhagen endorses the role of planning the mobility at the meta-scale of the Greater Copenhagen, notably through the Cycle Superhighways initiatives. The document analysis explored the same themes defined within the mobility justice theory. The documents, presented further, were political documents, written in English and therefore addressed to an international audience. However, the way the themes were approached helps understanding how the strategies and policies, or at least the vision that underly them, addressed the mobility justice challenges.

Finally, I used the two precedents stages to feed a set of expert interviews that addressed the Mobility Justice themes. It is an efficient method to collect quickly good data from interviews with whom I share common scientific background. It also creates a stimulating environment to discuss. It is also a good entry